After reading Jenna’s post about population density in Franklin County and being hopeful that we are seeing a resurgence in downtown living, I decided to look at how Columbus compares to other downtown neighborhoods or central business districts. For my…
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Over the past few weeks there’s been a bit of buzz over Franklin edging out Delaware for the title of Ohio’s fastest growing county. Franklin County has consistently grown for years–a rarity for Ohio as a whole and Midwestern urban…
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We’re pretty big on combining web-based tools with traditional planning practices at Urban Decision Group. In fact, we kind of think it’s a big deal. So much so that Rick Stein took something of a mini speaking tour across the…
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A little over a year ago, Google established a common format for public transportation data called GTFS or General Transit Feed Specification. GTFS feeds allow public transit agencies to publish their transit data and developers to write applications that consume…
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For the past several months, Urban Decision Group (UDG) has provided internship opportunities for two students from Oakstone Academy in Westerville, Ohio. Oakstone Academy is a private school (preschool through grade 12) chartered by the State of Ohio that provides…
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This comparative map from I Love Charts via Julia Topaz display’s Nate Silver’s final election prediction vs the final outcome. It’s an amazing example of how statistics and probability can be used to understand complex human systems in understandable ways. We also like to think that…
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On November 6, I set out to cast my vote for the President of the United States. Throughout the day I was asked if I had voted yet and I would reciprocate. One friend explained to me that he did…
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Uninsured Children in America In 2008, the American Community Survey (ACS) began surveying the U.S. population on the subject of health insurance coverage. To date, the most complete data set available is the 2008-2010 3 year ACS which excludes counties…
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This week is the anniversary of one of the worst tornado outbreaks in U.S. history. On April 3-4, 1974, at least 148 tornadoes roared across the United States. Since then, this has been eclipsed by only the May 21-26, 2011 tornado outbreak….
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It’s been over a year since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. It was a dark reminder that man-made disasters are sometimes harder to manage because there is often little warning. It is therefore critical that the population within the…
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